Global tech giants compete to be AI champion

When most people think about artificial intelligence, their minds turn to glorified fights to save the human race from rogue robots, a familiar story played out on Hollywood screens in decades gone by. While machine intelligence is still far from resembling human consciousness, an AI fight is playing out in real life, not between robots and humans, but rather among the businesses vying to lead an increasingly lucrative market. The origins of AI stretch back to 1950, when computer science pioneer Alan Turing published a paper speculating that machines could one day think like humans. Last year, research firm IDC valued the market at $8 billion, forecasting a rise to $47 billion in 2020. Between Turing's landmark paper 67 years ago and today's wild market valuations, most major AI developments have either fallen in the realms of research and academia or involved computers beating people at human games.